About the College Halls

Artist's rendering of the new residential college at Kissam (Vanderbilt University)

Vanderbilt University has begun construction of the next phase of its residential college system – College Halls at Vanderbilt.

The Commons, the first phase of College Halls, was opened in 2008 and brings together all first-year students who live in 10 houses, each guided by a faculty head of house, a member of the university faculty and mentor who lives among the students in a faculty apartment.

In the summer of 2012, the university demolished the six dormitories known as Kissam Quadrangle and broke ground on two residential colleges to open in August 2014. The colleges will each house approximately 330 upperclass students - a mixture of sophomores, juniors and seniors - and be led by a faculty director and two graduate students in residence. Each college will be organized into two halls in order to create unique neighborhoods within the larger college communities that will foster a variety of student-led opportunities for engagement, enrichment and leadership.

The $115 million project, a top initiative of Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos, is expected to be complete in fall 2014. Funding for the project will be provided entirely through philanthropy and internal resources.

As the College Halls at Kissam construction project continues to take shape on the northeast corner of Vanderbilt’s campus, the university has announced plans to name the finished structures and areas within them in honor of several figures significant to the history and culture of the university.

The residential colleges will be named Moore College in honor of Stanford Moore (1913-1982), a 1935 Vanderbilt graduate who received the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1972; and Warren College in honor of Robert Penn Warren (1905-1989), a 1925 Vanderbilt graduate and member of the influential Fugitive poets who later won Pulitzer Prizes for both fiction and poetry and was named the first poet laureate of the United States in 1986.

In addition, each college will be divided into two halls with beds for approximately 165 students. These halls also will receive honorary names. You can find more information on the hall names here.